Welcome to my One Planner to Rule Them all mini-series! I’ll be going over the two planners that I will be receiving, and giving the pros and cons of each, as well as a comparison of both.

Last year in November, I came across the Passion Planner. I have to admit, it got me very excited. It looked lovely, and had some really good features about it, which definitely drew my interest. I prompted placed an order via Kickstarter. Unfortunately, after the campaign ended, it was all down hill from there.

Let me start off by saying that this is a fairly new company, that sold planners last year. This year, they completely blew up. They got thousands and thousands of orders. Which is great for them, but not so great for people who ordered planners.

When I purchased mine it was slated for a January delivery. I was okay with missing a couple weeks of the planner. I did not receive mine until almost February. An entire month out of it, I wasn’t happy about. It’s a planner that is dated January – December 2015. Many other people have waited much longer, and are still waiting to receive them now.

What the company should have done, was to stop taking orders. It was basically a girl running it out of her garage, she should have known that she couldn’t handle the capacity that she was getting. It would have been the responsible thing to do, anyway.

I was fortunate enough to not get a planner with any notable flaws. Many people have received planners that were printed incorrectly, and missing months or weeks, or even having duplicate months. Several others have received planners that are coming off of their covers, or with pages just falling out of them. I suppose that’s what happens when you outsource manufacturing to China and have them made cheaply. You can read more about people’s woes on Passion Planner’s Facebook page.

Here’s a shot of the cover. It looks pretty nice, though it does feel rather thin, and doesn’t really feel like a quality material. If you compare it to a Moleskin, for example, you can tell that the material used here wouldn’t stand up like a Moleskin would. I don’t have a ruler handy, but I’d have to guess it’s about 5″x7″ and maybe .75″ thick.

This is the main feature that got me excited about the Passion Planner — Goal setting. The planner walks you through setting up lifetime, short-term, and longer-term goals using this neat little chart system. I was hoping to use it to get some things on track, like my business stuff, my blog, crafts, etc. The paper feels okay, not super quality, but definitely better than average printer paper.

Here’s a shot of what the monthly layout looks like. Again, more stuff to keep you goal oriented, which I liked!

This would be the weekly spread. More goal-oriented stuff, and I do like the little quotes that you find on each weekly spread. Some of them are kind of fun! What I don’t like about this, is that it’s broken down into a specific time. That aspect of this book would never work for me, as I don’t run a typical schedule, and don’t really have things I have to do at a particular time, past be at an appointment or similar circumstance. I also don’t wake up anywhere near that early, so my day does not end early either.

After the end of the next monthly spread, you have these reflection pages. I don’t know why they’re after the next month, rather than just before it, but it is what it is. This is another aspect that I liked, it gives you some things to think about in terms of how the month went.

In the back of the planner, you have this expandable pocket. I have to admit, this thing feels very cheaply made, and I kind of expect it to just rip apart at some point. Also in the very back of the book you have some blank pages, and some grid pages, for notes or doodle or whatever. I think I’d of opted to have these not included, since there’s a good amount of them. Having more months, or not having them at all would of been better options.

I had actually emailed to cancel this order and get a refund because I got tired of waiting. In the three weeks that I waited for a reply, my planner showed up. I got an email a few days later saying that they couldn’t refund me because I received the item. Well, of course I did, because they don’t answer emails in a timely fashion.

Given the issues that this company has had, I would not suggest purchasing from them, especially if you want your planner any time soon. In fact, I’d probably run far, far away from them and over to a better planner and company!

Stay tuned for part two of my series in a couple of weeks, which will be on the Plum Paper Planner!

All views expressed here are solely my own opinion. I was not compensated in any way for this review, and have not received any benefit from writing this review.